Breath Carbon Monitor Device

Breathing (or ventilation) is the process of moving air into and from the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly to flush out carbon dioxide and bring in oxygen.

All aerobic creatures need oxygen for cellular respiration, which extracts energy from the reaction of oxygen with molecules derived from food and produces carbon dioxide as a waste product. Breathing, or "external respiration", brings air into the lungs where gas exchange takes place in the alveoli through diffusion. The body's circulatory system transports these gases to and from the cells, where "cellular respiration" takes place.

The breathing of all vertebrates with lungs consists of repetitive cycles of inhalation and exhalation through a highly branched system of tubes or airways which lead from the nose to the alveoli. The number of respiratory cycles per minute is the breathing or respiratory rate, and is one of the four primary vital signs of life. Under normal conditions the breathing depth and rate is automatically, and unconsciously, controlled by several homeostatic mechanisms which keep the partial pressures of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the arterial blood constant. Keeping the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the arterial blood unchanged under a wide variety of physiological circumstances, contributes significantly to tight control of the pH of the extracellular fluids (ECF). Over-breathing (hyperventilation) and under-breathing (hypoventilation), which decrease and increase the arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide respectively, cause a rise in the pH of ECF in the first case, and a lowering of the pH in the second. Both cause distressing symptoms.

Breathing has other important functions. It provides a mechanism for speech, laughter and similar expressions of the emotions. It is also used for reflexes such as yawning, coughing and sneezing. Animals that cannot thermoregulate by perspiration, because they lack sufficient sweat glands, may lose heat by evaporation through panting.

Mechanics

The lungs are not capable of inflating themselves, and will expand only when there is an increase in the volume of the thoracic cavity. In humans, as in the other mammals, this is achieved primarily through the contraction of the diaphragm, but also by the contraction of the intercostal muscles which pull the rib cage upwards and outwards as shown in the diagrams on the right. During forceful inhalation (Figure on the right) the accessory muscles of inhalation, which connect the ribs and sternum to the cervical vertebrae and base of the skull, in many cases through an intermediary attachment to the clavicles, exaggerate the pump handle and bucket handle movements (see illustrations on the left), bringing about a greater change in the volume of the chest cavity. During exhalation (breathing out), at rest, all the muscles of inhalation relax, returning the chest and abdomen to a position called the "resting position", which is determined by their anatomical elasticity. At this point the lungs contain the functional residual capacity of air, which, in the adult human, has a volume of about 2.5–3.0 liters.

During heavy breathing (hyperpnea) as, for instance, during exercise, exhalation is brought about by relaxation of all the muscles of inhalation, (in the same way as at rest), but, in addition, the abdominal muscles, instead of being passive, now contract strongly causing the rib cage to be pulled downwards (front and sides). This not only decreases the size of the rib cage but also pushes the abdominal organs upwards against the diaphragm which consequently bulges deeply into the thorax. The end-exhalatory lung volume is now less air than the resting "functional residual capacity". However, in a normal mammal, the lungs cannot be emptied completely. In an adult human, there is always still at least one liter of residual air left in the lungs after maximum exhalation.

Diaphragmatic breathing causes the abdomen to rhythmically bulge out and fall back. It is, therefore, often referred to as "abdominal breathing". These terms are often used interchangeably because they describe the same action.

When the accessory muscles of inhalation are activated, especially during labored breathing, the clavicles are pulled upwards, as explained above. This external manifestation of the use of the accessory muscles of inhalation is sometimes referred to as clavicular breathing, seen especially during asthma attacks and in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Passage of air

Upper airways

Ideally, air is breathed first out and secondly in through the nose. The nasal cavities (between the nostrils and the pharynx) are quite narrow, firstly by being divided in two by the nasal septum, and secondly by lateral walls that have several longitudinal folds, or shelves, called
nasal conchae, thus exposing a large area of nasal mucous membrane to the air as it is inhaled (and exhaled). This causes the inhaled air to take up moisture from the wet mucus, and warmth from the underlying blood vessels, so that the air is very nearly saturated with water vapor and is at almost body temperature by the time it reaches the larynx. Part of this moisture and heat is recaptured as the exhaled air moves out over the partially dried-out, cooled mucus in the nasal passages, during exhalation. The sticky mucus also traps much of the particulate matter that is breathed in, preventing it from reaching the lungs.

Lower airways

The anatomy of a typical mammalian respiratory system, below the structures normally listed among the "upper airways" (the nasal cavities, the pharynx, and larynx), is often described as a respiratory tree or tracheobronchial tree (figure on the left). Larger airways give rise to branches that are slightly narrower, but more numerous than the "trunk" airway that gives rise to the branches. The human respiratory tree may consist of, on average, 23 such branchings into progressively smaller airways, while the respiratory tree of the mouse has up to 13 such branchings. Proximal divisions (those closest to the top of the tree, such as the trachea and bronchi) function mainly to transmit air to the lower airways. Later divisions such as the respiratory bronchioles, alveolar ducts and alveoli are specialized for gas exchange.

The trachea and the first portions of the main bronchi are outside the lungs. The rest of the "tree" branches within the lungs, and ultimately extends to every part of the lungs.

The alveoli are the blind-ended terminals of the "tree", meaning that any air that enters them has to exit the same way it came. A system such as this creates dead space, a term for the volume of air that fills the airways at the end of inhalation, and is breathed out, unchanged, during the next exhalation, never having reached the alveoli. Similarly, the dead space is filled with alveolar air at the end of exhalation, which is the first air to breathed back into the alveoli during inhalation, before any fresh air which follows after it. The dead space volume of a typical adult human is about 150 ml.

Gas exchange

The primary purpose of breathing is to refresh air in the alveoli so that gas exchange can take place in the blood. The equilibration of the partial pressures of the gases in the alveolar blood and the alveolar air occurs by diffusion. After exhaling, adult human lungs still contain 2.5–3 L of air, their functional residual capacity or FRC. On inhalation, only about 350 mL of new, warm, m